By Paul Gable
In the final act of the lawsuit brought by former Sandlands Landfill owner William Clyburn against Horry County, the fourth circuit court of appeals upheld the right of Horry County to establish a solid waste flow control ordinance.
This decision came down as county council is preparing to amend that very ordinance to remove construction and demolition debris from its regulation.
What is ironic is that the court upheld the county’s right to pass a flow control ordinance and now the Horry County Solid Waste Authority, the prime beneficiary of that law, is challenging the county’s right to amend the law.
The county council’s Infrastructure and Regulation Committee recently unanimously approved an amendment to the flow control ordinance that removes C&D from the ordinance provisions.
That recommendation now moves on to full council. It will take three readings of the amendment for it to become law.
After the decision by the I&R committee, the HCSWA began its propaganda campaign about what would it would have to cut due to loss of revenue and got its friends on the county council Administration Committee and among the Horry County League of Cities to try and help block the amendment.
The League of Cities, what amounts to a lunch club of the city mayors in the county with no official status or authority, will hear a presentation by the HCSWA tonight.
The Administration Committee will hear the same presentation tomorrow.
What I wish one of these groups would ask, but I don’t expect it to happen, is the actual status of the HCSWA.
It presented itself as a non-profit corporation, separate from the county, in court documents. However, the HCSWA, by its own admission, has never filed an IRS Form 990, which is a requirement of all non-profits.
More recently, in a continued effort to escape filing a Form 990, the HCSWA has prepared, but not submitted to council, bylaw changes to make it appear to be a component unit of Horry County government.
The HCSWA doesn’t want to file a Form 990 because it doesn’t want to have to explain to the IRS why it has so much excess reserves in the bank. Another problem is that federal law stipulates that a non-profit corporation that does not file a Form 990 for three consecutive years forfeits its status as a non-profit.
The HCSWA has not filed a Form 990 in any of its 20+ years as an alleged non-profit.
Of its amorphous status, HCSWA executive director Danny Knight told the I&R Committee, “in court we’re not the county, sometimes we’re somewhat the county, other times we’re somewhere in between, but you know how that works.”
Actually Danny, it doesn’t work and it’s time for a flow control ordinance that doesn’t work to the benefit of all county citizens to be amended.
Same old same old.